City officials blame near record snowfall for slow Flint cleanup

FLINT, MI – Flint Mayor Dayne Walling said he has been glad to see neighbors helping neighbors dig out of a near record snowfall amount.

But Walling asked residents to be patient with as the city works to finish removing the 17.1 inches of snow that blanketed the city during a storm last weekend. It was the third largest amount of snow in Flint’s history.

“When you get a storm of this magnitude – that’s the largest in decades – it’s not reasonable to think that any one entity is going to have the resources sitting around to address that in a day or two,” Walling said. “This is going to take us what amounts to about a week. The city of Flint is doing its part.”

City officials joined Emergency Manager Darnell Earley during a news conference on Thursday, Jan. 9, to update the snow removal progress on the city’s 520 miles of roads. Snow removal is expected to be done in the city by Saturday.

The Michigan Department of Transportation sent three trucks to the city on Thursday to plow and salt state routes throughout the city.

There are 20 “plow routes” mapped out throughout the city. Five of those were completely plowed on as of Thursday and another four routes were 75 percent plowed, according to Howard Croft, Flint’s director of utilities and infrastructure.

Croft said the city had more than a dozen workers in the street department who would typically make one or two passes throughout the city to clear snow. This storm need three or four plow passes.

“We believe that we are comfortably staffed in our transportation department to handle normal, everyday operations,” Croft said. “Certainly this was not a normal, everyday occurrence.”

Although the city pleaded with residents to move their vehicles on Wednesday, plow trucks still were delayed because of being forced to maneuver around them.

Croft said the city was able to help get more than 100 vehicles moved and out of the paths of plows that didn’t need to get towed.

The city also helped get people plowed out in instances of more than 150 emergencies ranging from 911 calls to medical appointments, Croft said.

“Every time these situations arose we pulled from where we were plowing to address those situations,” Croft said.

Dave Haeger, who lives on Wisconsin Avenue between Minnesota and Iowa avenues, said he didn't see city plows go through his neighborhood until Thursday afternoon.

“They did a good job. I mean, I wish they would have come a little sooner,” Haeger said. “We got sick of pushing everybody’s car out. As a matter of fact, the plow truck got stuck right there on that corner. That’s why all that (snow) is sitting in the intersection – that’s where the plow got stuck. He had to keep dropping and lifting his blade and rock back and forth…It took him about five minutes, but he finally got himself out of there.

“They didn’t even plow our street last year, not once. I mean, we pay taxes and everything – you’d think they’d get it done faster. That’s why no one wants to stay in Flint – nothing ever gets done. I think they care more about downtown and forget about everybody else.”

Elaine Kaye sympathized with the task the city had.

“I think they do as well as they can with what they have,” she said. “They only have so many people and there are a lot of streets. I mean it snowed for three days.”